"The hand map comes to a painting, and the maple bamboo kingfisher does not chirp. Although dan qingzhi was unsuccessful, he was replaced by a tooth carving to comfort this life. This is a poem written by Baoding Baigou carving artist You Zhimin in the "Ancient Art Workshop" studio after recently "sketching" to express nostalgia.
On the south side of the studio, a huge mammoth ivory carving completed by You Zhimin in four years is displayed, the shadow wall of "Qingming on the River".
You Zhimin, 72 years old this year, has been studying the art of sculpture since he was in his 20s. For more than 50 years, he still strives diligently in the world of sculpture art that he loves, and he never quits working on knives.
In 1971, 23 pairs of you Zhimin studied the art of carving with Master Wang Daguang, who was in the countryside of the Beijing Ivory Carving Factory, while learning painting and ancient poetry. At that time, You Zhimin ate and lived with the teacher, practicing hard day and night. You Zhimin introduced that boundaries, characters, animals, landscapes... With a knife instead of writing and copying Chinese paintings, it is not easy for an apprentice to master a skill, but he likes everything, practices hard, and finally uses his own carving knife to express them beautifully and vividly. He has successively carved and produced ancient famous paintings such as "Qingming Upper River Map", "Luoshen Futu", "Fuchun Mountain Jutu" and "Great Wall Ten Thousand Miles Map" drafted by a professor of the Academy of Fine Arts, so that they can reproduce their brilliance under their own carving knives.
You Zhimin is good at "part-time work with writing", flowers, birds and animals, generally under the knife with "work pen", landscape scenery, generally shown as "freehand". In Chinese painting, the landscape landscape is near large and far small, near clear and far blurry, near color heavy and far light, generally with brush dyeing to achieve the effect of sample measurement, and You Zhimin pursues the above effect in the way of "knife carving + finger erasure". He dyes without a pen, wipes it with his fingers until it dries, then rubs it with napkins, and finally wipes off the remaining ink. He said: "This was taught by the master in those years, so that the coloring works do not fade." ”
"Qingming on the River" is a northern Song Dynasty custom painting, the work in the form of a long scroll, using scattered perspective composition method, vividly recorded the northern Song Dynasty city appearance of The City and the living conditions of people of all walks of life at that time. In the 5-meter-long scroll, hundreds of colorful figures and livestock such as cattle, mules, donkeys, as well as houses, bridges, flowing water, city towers, vehicles are depicted... And such a famous painting, You Zhimin uses his carving skills to make it reappear on mammoth ivory, virtual reality, wonderful rhyme, breathtaking. You Zhimin's "Qingming Upper River Map", which took a year to create in 1994, is 526 cm long and 24.7 cm wide, and was appraised by 6 experts as a "national treasure-level carving" by 6 experts when it was auctioned in 1997, and was finally collected by the National Treasure Museum.
Published in 1998 by Beijing Arts and Crafts Publishing House, "Complete Collection of Modern Chinese Art: Ivory Gold and SilverWare" includes 211 pieces (groups) of ivory carvings and gold and silverware treasures and fine works since the beginning of the 20th century. In this book, you can enjoy photos of You Zhimin's "Qingming River Map" created in the early 1990s, which is 58 centimeters high and 264.5 centimeters wide. The book records that the work is a "large-scale long-scrolled dental flat-engraved work" and "in four sections embedded in the front and back of the shadow wall with the eaves." The front is based on the famous Song Dynasty painter Zhang Zeduan's "Qingming River Map" and is flat-carved in the form of Chinese painting white drawings. The four-section iron wooden seat of the mosaic format can be inserted and connected into a shadow wall. On the back side are engraved large sections of celebrity inscriptions, inscriptions and collection marks, all of which are finely imitated. The work is in the collection of the Treasure Museum of Beijing Gongmei Group Corporation.
According to records, the history of ivory carving art in China can be traced back to the Neolithic Age, even as a formal craft and production industry began in the Zhou Dynasty. At the beginning of the 20th century, it began with the ivory club and big tooth behavior in Guangdong in the south, and the first folk ivory workshop that appeared in Beijing in 1910 in the north. On the basis of inheriting the varieties and styles of the Qing Dynasty, the modern ivory carving art in China began to change. Since the 1950s, practical ivory crafts have gradually decreased, appreciative ornaments have gradually increased, and the works with character themes have become more and more diverse, and historical themes have suddenly emerged. From the 1950s to the 1980s, national gifts were selected for foreign and international exchanges, and ivory carving artworks were repeatedly preferred.
As a valuable work of art, the completion of a carved work, poured a lot of sweat and energy into the author. You Zhimin likes to "work" in the middle of the night, because there is no noise and light interference at that time, conceiving, determining proportions, sketching, knife carving... He threw himself into every step of the way. Especially when using the knife, the whole body is tense, and all the force is concentrated on the fingertips. Sometimes a character's face of about 2 mm is carved, from the eyebrows to the lips, up to 13 knives, and even the gender of the character and the expressions of joy and sorrow can be expressed in the work. "When I was in my 30s, I could stay still for an hour, even though my arms were almost stiff when I threw down the knife, and I would stick to it next time." Now that the eye pressure is high, I can't hold on for that long, and I have to relax in about 10 minutes. It can be heard that although he is older now, You Zhimin's love for the art of sculpture has not diminished in the slightest.
In the 1980s, his family, relatives and friends advised him to "change his profession": "Baigou has a developed economy, and what to do is not better than carving to make money!" You Zhimin, who is fully immersed in the art of carving, is not impressed, because he believes that "ivory carving is a world-class artistic treasure, and he cannot be destroyed in the hands of our generation." You Zhimin said that in his lifetime, he will continue to persevere, in addition to creating more and better works, but also to pass on this skill, "I am willing to pass on what I have learned in my life to new people without reservation, so that our traditional art can be carried forward in the new era." ”
Report: Li Zhaomin
Source: Hebei Workers Daily